Hope will out
by cedari
Summary: He was stripped of his money, made to live in a dowdy muggle flat and forced to endure sessions with Granger on a weekly basis. 6 years past 5 sessions in the present and all the stuff in between.drh
1. Chapter 1

**HOPE WILL OUT**

**By Cedari**

**A/n written for bestskeptic for the dmhgficexchange**

**Huge thanx go out to my fab betas sandi wandi and derryere!!!!**

**PART 1**

**PRESENT: Week beginning the 1st of December **

_**4.10pm**_

_The history of the Gullywarps is complicated, yet at the same time easy. Interesting, yet at the same time stunningly boring. Never-ending but at the same time the shortest read in your life time. _

Hermione closed the book in frustration. What a load of claptrap. She picked up the spine of the latest book that had found its way into her tray. Wilfred Ribaldi the third was an idiotic author yet at the same time a completely idiotic author. As she placed it in the bin next to her feet she chuckled at her own joke.

Then he sighed.

And whatever humour she had left in her tired body evaporated at the reminder of his presence. She looked up. He had his right leg crossed over his left with his right arm resting in the junction, in that typical position all men adopted, as if to say, "I'm the king of the castle, bow down and honour me." His face wore a bored expression as he stared at the calendar on the wall. His picture was one of many under the date of December the 1st, but it was the only one that was circled in red pen. She knew what he was waiting for, for that little red line to disappear and transfer itself onto another poor sod. All her charges did that, but he was more awkward than most. He was Draco Malfoy. She didn't know what he did after fleeing the tower that night and she didn't really care. Actually no, cross that. She hoped that he had been thrashed and beaten a couple of times, bashed into a wall and then got his head shoved down a toilet. But then she remembered who she was, "_Chief carer of the misguided_," the head of all that is fair and understanding. Misguided, the word made her angry every time she saw the gold letters on her door. They weren't misguided. They were cowards of a war long gone, people who didn't have the guts to be one of those really bad guys, but just flirted with it. Dipped one toe in the pool, decided it was too cold and that they were too scared to jump in. The ones the ministry couldn't lock away technically, but kept tabs on, so that people like her had to waste four hours of their life every day making sure that they were okay, and were fully redeemed and so forth. If Hermione had her way she would have placed Malfoy and his ilk into some cold, dank cell and thrown away the key. Had war made her hard, unfeeling? No. But she was hit by its grim reality and it knocked all that sense of idealism and optimism clear out of her head and squashed it under its great, enormous, filthy foot. She was a realist now and proud of it. That's why people like Malfoy made her right eye twitch and her neck tense.

_**4.30pm**_

"How's Potter?"

She hadn't heard him speak before. His voice was a notch lower than what she had expected to leave his girly mouth. He was staring at the photo of Harry, Ron and herself that lay in the pride of place on top of her book shelf. Pointing her wand at it, it fell flat on the wood so he couldn't see their smiling faces.

She could practically see the smirk forming on his face.

"Hope he's well."

He was replied with stony silence.

_**5.00pm**_

And so an hour passed and that moment that he had been waiting for had finally come. There it was, that red circle had gone and he was free. Without even paying her any attention he got up and made to leave her office. He was barely one foot out when she asked him...

"So how's your flat?"

He had considered lying. But why bother? She had probably handpicked it herself.

"It's a shit hole."

She hadn't looked up to face him and yet he could still see the small smile.

"Excellent."

And then he slammed her office door. Hard.

**PAST: 6 years ago**

Time seemed to crawl by in his life. One second slowed down to an hour. He remembered a past where it would fly by in a blur of laughs and fun, but that all seemed so long ago. He supposed it was.

He looked up into the grubby mirror that had been haphazardly placed on the wall. His face was barely visible among the smears of grime and god knows what else in this dump. The pub had been his haven for the last couple of hours ever since the weather had turned nasty. He was surprised the bartender had not chucked him out, but checking out the rest of the clientele he supposed he fit in with the pimps touting their prostitutes and the mindless scum who were only to happy to give away their benefit money for the instant gratification on hand.

This was the fifth bathroom visit of the day. He had been alternating between throwing up the entire contents of his stomach and trying to keep it all down. Fuck knows what he had eaten, fucking cheap muggle food. Turning the tap on, he grimaced as yellow-brown water hit the basin. Closing his eyes he cupped the foul liquid in his hands and rinsed his mouth with it, anything to get rid of the bitter taste that coated every surface in his mouth. He nearly gagged when some of it went down his throat by accident. Still spluttering, he slipped down to the floor.

"Run." Snape had said. "Run! I'll be right behind you," he had screamed. So he did. Stumbling over rocks, falling on his hands and knees, picking himself up, doing it again and again. Then when his calf muscles were beginning to burn and his heart on the verge of exploding, he stopped. Then turned around. And then saw that he was alone. Snape wasn't behind him. He was by himself and he didn't know where. He had never been this far out from Hogwarts, not even with his friends. And he had fallen to the ground and cried as he realised how badly his world had cracked around him. _Bam. _It was like a ton of bricks landing on him. The past year had been terrifying but at the same time exciting, thrilling even. He had been part of the man's game that his father had never really given him an invite to join. But then Voldemort had and he was on a high, initially. Then it waned and ebbed every time something went wrong and then those rare times when everything was going right. But when he came to it, the wand pointing at his headmaster, all he felt was pressure and strain. Heavy and hot, constricting his chest and suffocating his heart with its insistence. Pressure was a cold, hard bitch. And that's all he remembered. The next thing he knew he was running and his life was screwed.

And now here he was crying like a girl on some filthy floor, with the guy pissing in the urinal across the way giving him a queer look.

Reviews always make me smile! so let me know what u think- luv it or hate it?

luv cedari


	2. Chapter 2

**HOPE WILL OUT**

**By Cedari**

**Disclaimer: goes for previous chap as well, JK Rowling for all the charcters in the harry potter universe. **

**Huge thanx go out to my fab betas sandi wandi and derryere!!!!**

****

**PART 2**

**PRESENT: week beginning the 9th of December**

_**4.30pm**_

"How are your parents Granger?"

She glared at him, her eyebrows furrowed in suspicion.

He held out his arms in front of him.

"Seriously Granger, are you really thinking I'm gonna murder your parents in their bed tonight? Jesus. You guys went and put a chip in my neck so you'll know when I'm being a naughty boy, killing men after I make them watch me rape their wives.

Fuck. It's not like I'm asking for their address and insurance numbers. I was just asking how they are."

Her fingernails were biting into the flesh of her palms as her hands had curled round into small, tight fists. How could he say shit like that, like it was funny? Like it didn't really happen to people she knew, people she loved. She stared hard into those grey eyes just so he knew for sure how close he was to getting hexed.

_**5.00pm**_

He seemed to understand and didn't say another word. The fact of which surprised her. And as a result caused her to speak to him as he was leaving her office; a reward.

"They're fine."

**PAST: 1 year 4 weeks ago**

They led him down the corridor. He was starting to get multicoloured spots behind his eyes from the overly bright lights. Its garish rays were sharp on his retina and bounced off the shiny pink walls, giving him a double dose.

"Why do you have to make these lights so bright?"

The guard stopped in his tracks and smiled sweetly.

"Because we can, _Mr. Malfoy_."

Draco didn't like the way he had said 'Mr Malfoy.' It had been laced with sarcasm and the smile that followed was clearly mocking him.

He wasn't a Mister anymore. Actually, he wasn't anything any more. He had been on the run for five years before they had caught up with him. It had all been rather accidental really. Foolishly, Draco had sneaked into Diagon Alley following the end of the war wanting to just let his old life surround him; it had been such a long time. Then he was spotted. He had tried to run, but a malnourished fool was no match for three well-trained Aurors. Too soon his face had been smashed against the cobbled streets and he found himself sat in a prison cell. Luckily his incarceration had been short, but not quite sweet. The guards did nothing to hide their hatred and Draco couldn't remember sleeping for those ten days. To public outcry he was chipped and let out. His every move was monitored. He was stripped of his money, made to live in a dowdy muggle flat and forced to endure sessions with Granger on a weekly basis.

But perhaps the worse thing was the fact that his parents were still alive. It sounds perverse and disturbing for a son to say that, wrong even. But then no one knew his parents like he did. Their lives revolved around the cause, the higher purpose.

They weren't dedicated to it per se; rather they were controlled by it. And then when it was gone they just collapsed, mentally and physically. It was as if it was the source of all their strength, all their inner hope. They had sat glazed and mute when they had been sentenced. Draco had not been there but he had managed to get hold of the odd newspaper and it had gleefully informed its readers of all the juicy details. Now since his so called "freedom" he would visit them in this hell hole every week.

"Here we are. You have ten minutes."

Then the guard was gone and Draco was left to his family reunion.

His father sat on his steel bed staring blankly at something above Draco's shoulder. He gave no indication that he had seen, or even registered his only son's presence. It was moments like this that Draco would desperately try to forget who was standing in front of him. Detach himself from the shell that was once was his father. He wouldn't have wanted to see him cry.

"Draco?"

The questioning voice of his mother broke him out of his spell.

"Mum."

"Come here sweetheart." Her bony wrist beckoned him to sit next to her. He sat as far as he could without coming into contact with the barrier.

"How are you, mum?"

Then she began to cry. Heavy tears rolled down her gaunt face. He could hear the pain in her whimpers.

"Mum. Please don't cry."

His lower lip began to quiver as he watched his once elegant mother break down in front of him. Her shaking fingers trying to cover her face from his view. Grey hair stuck to moist skin. She did this every time. Every single time.

It would have been better if they had died. If they had all died.

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cheers cedari


	3. Chapter 3

**HOPE WILL OUT**

**By Cedari**

**PART 3**

**Disclaimer: JK Rowling for all the charcters in the harry potter universe. **

**Huge thanx go out to my fab betas sandi wandi and derryere!!!!**

****

**PRESENT: Week beginning the 17th of December**

_**4.30pm**_

"Don't touch anything."

His expression seemed to read, 'As if I could be bothered."

But no sooner could he hear her clack her way down the corridor he was out of his chair like someone had lit a fire under his ass. This must be what a five-year old feels like in a candy shop. So excited he could barely breathe. His fingers were everywhere. Rifling through her drawers, looking at those letters labelled PRIVATE, and then the note from someone called Edward. Who in Draco's opinion sounded like a complete sappy idiot. Through all of this he had no idea what he was looking for, just that he was looking. He was curious to see what her life was like. The life that could have been his if his father had won. Hand in the trash, he pulled out the scrunched up pieces of paper he had spent the last half an hour watching her toss into the bin. God this felt like gold dust. He unfolded it.

'Dear Edward. I'm sorry...'

Draco didn't need to read the rest of it to know the loser was dumped, and to be dumped by Granger. The sad act had just plummeted further down in Draco's opinion.

Next one.

'Blah blah blah'

Next one.

God. Granger led one hell of a boring life. The only interesting thing had been one little spelling mistake, probably the first Little Miss Perfect had ever made in her life.

_**4.45pm**_

He had now reached the last ball of paper. He unfolded it.

_Just a quick note. Can't wait to see you. Mum is going mental over the cooking. Come at around 7 for dinner._

_Love,_

_Ron. _

Draco threw it away quickly, like his hands had been burnt by acid. Then he heard her coming, he quickly put everything back where it belonged and returned to his chair. She came in, looked around the room and then at him. Her brown eyes narrowed for a second and then flicked away. And for some reason when he saw her sit down at her big, comfy chair, he hated her all over again. It wasn't the hatred that he felt at eleven, when he thought that he had to hate her. No this time he genuinely hated her; it was actually a feeling that came from deep inside that made his lips curl into a grimace as he eyed her plain appearance and thought about her fucking life.

She caught him staring and was slightly put off by the intense glare he was sending her way. She had been aware of him looking at her in the past but this was making uncomfortable tingles run up and down her spine.

"What."

"Got anything planned for Christmas?" He asked.

Was he taking the piss?

"A big Christmas dinner at the Weasleys. You? Having anybody around, or is it just a meal for one?"

His features turned even uglier. Hard and pinched, as if he had a lemon shoved into his mouth and someone had just ordered him to suck.

_**5.00pm**_

Time he left. Thank Merlin. She couldn't bear his presence within five metres from her any more. She could practically feel him trying to glare her to death.

"By the way it's 'e' before the 'i' in 'receive'."

He tossed the comment out in the air as he left.

The cogs in her head were super quick and she realised what he had done and he hadn't even closed the door when he heard her mutter.

"Nosy Bastard."

**PAST: 13 years ago**

He sat down with the bottle of Crimpers Champers in one hand and a massive slice of cake in another. Making sure his parents were nowhere in sight, he took a quick slug of the alcohol. Any one else who had been insulted at the way he was downing a 30,000 galleon bottle of champagne but he was just an eleven year old trying to get drunk without his parents finding out. The party was in full swing. The air was sweet with the smell of flowers, perfume and alcohol. Draco inhaled deeply. The women glided in their dresses as their respective partners swung them around on the ballroom floor. This was the Annual Malfoy Christmas Party, and it was the epitome of all that was expensive and luxurious. He spread his legs out in front of him as he took in his inheritance, his future. All this would be his. The colourful dresses and the sound of laughter were making him feel giddy, or maybe it was the drink. He took a final, even bigger, swig. His head slammed back into the wall behind him as the alcohol sent him to the moon.

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Please review, cheers cedari


	4. Chapter 4

**HOPE WILL OUT**

**By Cedari**

**Disclaimer: goes for previous chap as well, JK Rowling for all the charcters in the harry potter universe. **

**Huge thanx go out to my fab betas sandi wandi and derryere!!!!**

**PART 4**

**PRESENT: Week beginning the 24th of December**

After last week's session she had felt compelled to read his file. She had tried before, when she had first been assigned to him, but then her secret love of celebrity dancers with their sparkly outfits came on her television screen and she had dumped it on the floor and had forgotten all about him. Well if she was honest she had not quite forgotten. Every time she went home her eyes would flicker to that spot underneath her armchair and the manila folder that peeked out from under it. Truthfully now, crossing her heart and hoping to die, she just thought it would bring it all back to her, all those years and memories drowning her as soon as the floodgates opened. She had read other folders, but she had a feeling this one would be the one that would break her.

So last night she had taken a deep breath and read it, a fact file on Draco Malfoy, all the essential details about his privileged, structured, messed up life. Starting from the beginning when a screaming Narcissa gave birth to a baby covered in slime to the present twenty eight year old who had nothing but himself. Both parents had died a couple of months ago. The researcher had gone as far as to provide pictures of the deceased. She checked out the dates again. Lucius Malfoy, 23rdof December. Narcissa Malfoy, 25th of December. Tomorrow was the 24th of December.

Shit.

_**4.00pm**_

So when she came in today she was prepared for a slightly different Malfoy. She couldn't describe what she thought different was, just that it was well, different. But that Malfoy never turned up at her office. Instead it was the one she had been used to for the last three weeks.

Silent and bored.

_**4.50pm **_

Over the past fifty minutes she had kept sneaking peeks at him from under her eyelashes, expecting some sort of sign that he was not completely heartless. But his cheeks were dry and his steel eyes were as hard as ever. Nothing seeped into them, not a liquid of emotion. It made Hermione feel cold. It made her want to call her parents when she got home tonight and tell them she loved them.

Malfoy was a self-interested bastard but he had never been emotionless. The majority of the time it was his emotions that got the better of him and pissed off half of Hogwarts. And for a second she stopped to think what had happened to him. What had made him not quite human?

_**5.00pm**_

She couldn't resist.

"Have you gone and seen them?"

"Seen who?"

"Your parents."

He met her eyes with a fierce look. She felt ashamed by her bluntness.

"Sorry I shouldn't have said anything."

"Yeah. You shouldn't."

His anger made her angry.

"I was just trying to be nice."

"You were trying to be nice about my dead parents. Thanks. It means a lot."

He turned his back on her, ending their brief conversation.

Anger was an emotion Hermione concluded in her head. It meant something.

"It must be hard," she said out loud, assuming he had already gone.

"Thanks."

His sudden reply made her drop her pen and sit still for the next hour.

**PAST: Earlier that day**

He sat down on the bench opposite their graves. Frostbitten weeds had taken over the patch and all the money the Malfoys had had was now just two battered gravestones lying side by side. Someone had obviously tried to smash the stones for his parents' names were run through with fresh cracks. He moved forward to kneel down next to his mother and ran his finger along the central lightning shape fracture. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him.

He placed the orchids on his mother's grave. Three stems, one for each of them. Over the past few years, lonely nights had made him think, really think.

Was it worth it? Was it worth all the stress and the heartache?

Draco would have been an idiot to say that for the most part, his life had been good, perhaps even the best. He had gotten everything he had wanted since he could voice his first words. He never had to ask twice. New broom? _Here you go, son_. New cloak? _Only one! Why not two, sweetheart?_ So wrapped up in his own little life and petty wants, he had been blind to what had been happening around him. His father's nights in his study trying to think desperately of something that would please Voldemort, anything that stopped the look of mistrust in his master's gaze when ever he was looked upon. Whilst his mother sat in bed wondering what was going to happen to her son, her little boy. For the past ten years their lives had been centred on jumping through hoops and over obstacles. They had to, if they wanted to stay alive. They were caught between a rock and a hard place. Go against Voldemort and be put to death or die trying to fight a war which ultimately would swing only one way. His father was an intelligent man. He knew what would happen in the end. Voldemort was delusional, his only thought was to kill Harry Potter, everything else forgotten. They didn't have enough resources, belief or strength. They were going nowhere, but then he concluded it was better to cling to the small hope that they would win then to turn traitor. And that's how it was.

Pressure and choices, both were bitches in Draco's opinion.

Yet perhaps the turning point in their lives wasn't then. It was before he was born. When his parents were his age, and they were both side by side bowing before Voldemort and swearing their allegiance. Or may be before then when they were lectured by their parents on the prejudice against wizards and how they must ensure the pureness of their world. It was never ending this back tracking of blame, and he never got any where.

So was it worth it?

Draco wasn't sure, but he thought not.

He lay down next to his parents, not caring that his cloak would get muddy or wet. He stared up into the sky. It was rare on a winter's day in London but it was a clear blue. Cloudless.

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	5. Chapter 5

**HOPE WILL OUT**

**By Cedari**

******Disclaimer: JK Rowling for all the charcters in the harry potter universe. **

**Huge thanx go out to my fab betas sandi wandi and derryere!!!!**

**PART 5**

**PRESENT: week beginning the 31st of January **

_**4.00pm**_

When he came in today something within her shifted. It was indescribable but she could feel it. He wasn't just Malfoy anymore. He was _Malfoy_. And to Hermione, that didn't make sense at all.

Months ago she had finalised the future plan, that she was no longer going to hope but that she was going to be realist. Decide what was what and that was the end of it. No high flying thoughts that would lift her feet from the ground. War had grounded her, driven her straight down. People like Malfoy would never change. They had been programmed to believe in one way, act in another. These schemes were pointless, a complete waste of time. And Malfoy. Well he was long past it; he didn't have a heart, a soul. He was a machine, trained for only one purpose.

But in the past few days Malfoy had caused her to question herself, and the tiniest of sparks had lit within her. It was a barely there, flickering flame of hope.

_**5.00pm**_

"Happy New Year."

The words were out of her mouth before she could take them back and swallow them. But when he stopped and for the first time actually turned around to look at her, she didn't regret it.

"Happy New Year." And he closed the door.

It was strange, Draco thought; her eyes had held something other than their usual mix of anger and disgust. It was softer, something slightly more complex.

Maybe this was the start of a beautiful friendship.

Or maybe not. He let out a sharp laugh.

**PAST: Boxing Day just gone **

On Boxing Day she had gone to the cemetery before the others had woken, wrapping herself in woollens and cashmere to protect her from the biting wind of the north. It was something she did every year, as innate as giving Ron the Cannon fan gear for Christmas. Those who had fallen in the war were buried in one particular patch, high up on the hill, where everything in London could be seen, from the snow-capped spikes of Big Ben to the frosted dome of St Paul's. She always thought this had been not so much for the deceased but for those that came to visit them, to remind them that their loved ones hadn't died in vain, but for something. For all those people in those tiny houses, for thousands of lives, and in a small way it did help relieve the grief.

Then she found herself walking, down the central patch, through the stone arch and towards those graves that didn't get the view. It was curiosity. Pure and simple curiosity. She just had to know.

She found them quickly enough. Next to one another. And her heart skipped a beat when she saw the dying flowers on the grass. She bent down to pluck a petal from one of the orchids. Though its pale yellow body was curling into brown at the tip, she could still feel the freshness between her fingertips. Must be around seven days old. She tried to calculate whether that was before or after she had seen him that week. But when she let that petal slip away from her grip she realised that it didn't really matter.

Perhaps there was hope for them all.

**The End**

please review if u hav read the fic and let me know what you think. Thanx Cedari

**Fic Requested by bestskeptic**

**Would you prefer an art or fic valentine?** Fic, please.

**Rating**: PG13+  
**Describe your ideal valentine in as few words as possible**:  
Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Draco never fought for the "good side," and narrowly escaped Ministry persecution.  
**Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's)**: AU (Sirius is the only exception, but unless it can be done well, I prefer him... beyond the veil), dead Harry.


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